All the children are in their beds, it’s past eight o’clock, so I snuggle close to the fire. It means moving Grandad’s chair. I absorb the heat of good windfall wood and reflect with warmth a funny topsy Tuesday.

Knock! Knock! I am interrupted.

“Mum, have you seen outside? It’s so bright. It looks almost like daylight. The moonlight was shining on the water tank, in our room, so I had to get out of bed and have a look. The outside of our window is wet from the “dew-like”. It’s all pretty patterns”.

And he prattles on and on about the Moelfre and the possibility of frost and how it looks as if the sun might rise any minute, until I remind him of two things. I love him and he needs to go back to bed.

He’s right though. It is a beautiful night, reminiscent of marriage proposals and random midnight rambles across Snowdonia in partial snow, because it’s too spectacular to sleep on such nights. But its been a beautiful, full-of-the-promise-of-spring, day too today. So why when we were all squashed in the car or our way down to town, did we encounter this? Or should I just stop here to remind myself it is topsy Tuesday.

We were taking Tim back to work and going on for our Tuesday afternoon hour in the library. This is a delicious hour in our week, where we lose ourselves in literature. It serves no other purpose but to lose ourselves in literature. Miss Puddleduck invariably chooses to read Welsh (and we wonder at her speech delay!), which leaves me at a loss and her with the promise that Daddy can read it to her. Needless to say, he hasn’t yet. But the promise being overheard by the librarian ensures she speaks to Tim in Welsh whenever he goes to the library. This amuses me!

We always leave the library with one book in Welsh, one on British History or Outdoor Survival, one on animals and usually one book that has something to do with horses. But somehow “Fantastic Mr Fox” managed to slyly slink his way in DVD form into the collection, today, after we had parted with a pound.

On our way down to town, we met a car coming up. With true British courtesy, we pulled over. It was one of Tim’s Council colleagues. With true British courtesy, we passed the time of day at the tightest bend on the lane. I smiled at this gentleman I’ve not met before, from the passenger seat. I think as I was actually in the hedge, I must have been camouflaged. He didn’t smile back.

With true British courtesy, Tim wound the window down. Such was the awkwardness of the moment that the children gasped as he did so. We don’t wind that window down. It is broken. It doesn’t wind up. Everybody knows that, except Tim didn’t want his Council colleague to know that. That would be letting the side down a bit! The rest of the journey down the hill was to be a windy one.

With true British courtesy, greetings were exchanged and with true British courtesy the weather discussed for want of anything better to discuss at an awkward bend in the road.

But it was this that added another tally to my topsy Tuesday chart. This respectable gentleman said, “It’s an awful day, isn’t it?” and my wonderful husband, whom I admire more than any other man in the world, answered with political tact.

“Yes, it is. Isn’t it?”

That was it. We drove our windy way down the hill. When we got to town, Tim stopped and sorted the window out with the deftness required for dealing with old skodas. Then I challenged him. What nonsense. It was a beautiful day. But Tim said it’s all a matter of individual perspective, words that do nothing to dispell the stereotype of Councillors, but confirm some theories on true British courtesy.

That was in the middle of the day, but the day began too with nonsense.

Knock! Knock! I squeaked “Yes”.

“Mum. There’s a horse loose in the yard.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see.”

“Is it one of ours?”

“I don’t know.”

It wasn’t one of ours, thankfully. The docile beast, with beautiful eyes and a liking for carrots was returned to the right field before breakfast.

Opening the day like that and it could only be a topsy Tuesday. We had had a very late night. I had been observing with growing admiration and amazement the skill with which Tim handles his new position of 2011, the night before, and by rights I should have been very tired. But I wasn’t. We had had such a God centred and life-giving evening the energy from which had translated into replenishing rest. To be out head-collaring naughty highlands, first thing, was quite refreshing.

I knew it was definitely a topsy Tuesday when I asked Miss Puddleduck, while she was getting dressed what colour her hair is. She held a strand of it to the light and stared at it for a long time.

“Green.” She said.

That was when I began my mental tally of what made it a topsy Tuesday. Rich Tea Boy added to it by asking if it was correct that we only have two full moons a year. When Tim said that was not correct and that we have one once a month he then chose to check if he was correct, with me. Now that is a definite topsy Tuesday thing to have to check such information with me!

The day concluded with me slipping up so dramatically, the children, with hilarity, re-enacted my fall on the kitchen floor – like a cartoon character slipping on a banana skin – numerous times. This was not as numerous as the different varieties of bats that there are in the world, though; a figure I was asked if I knew, off the top of my head.

But the children were unaccountably giddy this evening. Their giddiness led them from trying to persuade me KFC was the way ahead for tea (an event kept for the rare if ever moment) as it wasn’t long until Longshanks’ birthday (all of 11 months, more peals of ridiculous giggles) to turning “Baa baa black sheep”, the well known nursery rhyme, into a rap.

Said in rap style and with a voice five tones lower than normal:

“Baa baa,

Black sheep.

Have you any cool?”

But the highlight of a topsy Tuesday has to have been sharing in the exploits of Despereaux, Chiaroscuro, Miggery Sow and Princess Pea, while Miss Puddleduck did ballet. I love children’s literature, but this is outstanding, with all the extra of extraordinary. To share in Despereaux’s quest:

But you must, when calculating the odds of the mouse’s success, factor in his love for the princess. Love, as we have already discussed, is a powerful, wonderful, ridiculous thing, capable of moving mountains. And spools of thread.

The Tale Of Despereaux – Kate DiCamillo

I have loved the moments today where, though they might have been odd, we have laughed and loved as a family should.

Song of Songs 8:7b “If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned.”

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About deerfeet

I am a home-educating mother of four children. We live on a small holding in Wales and my husband is active in local politics and the lead pastor of our church, Festival Church.